Really, truly, madly...

It's Friday afternoon again and I pride myself on the fact that I still know which day of the week it is. Apparently I'm not so befuddled by my depression that I don't know that. I was a bit confused in the middle of the week, but those were muddled days and there wasn't much to make them stand out individually. The start and the end of the week are much easier to tell apart.

I'm not going to let myself get all excited because it's the weekend now. I've decided that it actually doesn't make one bit of difference with the rest of the week. I can act like it is the weekend in the middle of the week just as well. I have as few obligations then as I do on the weekends. 

There are the same amount of chores to do. The only difference is that on Sunday I don't get any mail and it's an official day of rest. I'll just make the middle of the week official days of rest too. That doesn't mean I won't achieve anything. It just means that I'll take the mental pressure off for myself. It will feel like I won't have to perform. 

One thing with a depression...once you've acknowledged it to yourself and the rest of the world, there's nothing you can do but wait it out. My medication has been increased and all I can do now is wait for it to start working and I have to be patient. The waiting is actually kind of boring because on top of that you can't get excited about anything. Nothing turns you on. You're just a bump on a log.

I'm lucky because once I realize that it's a depression I'm fighting, I immediately stop having all thoughts of self hatred. I have no destructive inner dialogue going on. All is silent. But it's the silence that's so boring because there's nothing. It's like I'm empty. 

I suppose it's better to be empty than have a self destructive inner dialogue. That's why I need to try and fill my time with other things. I need to keep my mind occupied for as far as that is possible. It's hard to concentrate on things in specific, but for little periods of time I am able to apply myself. The best things are taking naps, but you do get done sleeping at some point. 

I have to go and walk the dog. Surprisingly, the sun is shining. 

Ciao,

Nora

Throwing a spanner in the works...

I was going to spoil this post by telling you how depressed I am, but I've decided not to do that and for the duration of this night only to look at the bright side of life. I'm sure I can find some amazingly cheerful things to write about if I try hard enough. 

I'm not so depressed right now that I only see things in the colors gray and black. I'm sure there are some brighter colors lurking in the shadows and I will set my sight on them. There's some yellow and bright red and light green. Little dots of it and I will see what I can do with them. 

I can tell you that I'm drinking an excellent cup of coffee and no doubt that has influence on the state of my mind, good coffee making for a better mood. I've also got a pack of newly made cigarettes, so I'm all set. 

For a while anyway I'm comfortable, except that I have a dog breathing down my neck who wants impossible things from me. I'll just have to ignore him and get on with it.

I do have an awful pain in my bad shoulder and I woke up with that. I've tried to move it around to try and get whatever kink is in it out, but it hasn't helped yet. I may be coming down with a case of bursitis again. I will have to rub that sport's creme on it and hope it works. 

It's impossible not to be influenced by the quiet and peacefulness of the night. I can almost imagine that I don't live in town but in the solitude of the countryside. The suburbs are awfully silent at night. The only noises I hear are those in my own apartment and those are very minute. The clicking of the dog's tags being one of them and the loudest.

I'm reminded of the time I lived in a village of 600 souls in the middle of the mountains on a dead end road. It was a wonderful place to be. There was much quiet and solitude and company if you so desired. I have fond memories of the place. My kids were little there and had a fun childhood. 

I better not go down memory lane because I'm a product of my turbulent life. I have many sad memories as well and they come floating to the top along with the good ones. It's better to stay in the here and now and to not remember too much. That's a closed book and it has nothing to do with my life now. I'm a totally different person living a totally different life and nothing at all like I had imagined. 

Today my effort is going to be to get the mail out of the mailbox and to deal with it and to deal with the mail that's already lying on my desk. If I get that done I'll be satisfied. No doubt I'll also talk with my psychiatrist after the email I sent him about becoming depressed. I've also got to change my bed so I can look forward to clean sheets tonight after I've watched the thriller that's going to be on TV.

I think I'll take some pain medication for my shoulder as it's slowly becoming more sore. Going back to bed and resting it will be good for it. I just won't sleep on my side. It will be a bit tricky to walk the dog today. I'll have to use my other hand to hold the leash. The dog does pull.

I hope you'll all have a good day. It's going to be drizzly here, but not too cold. 

Ciao,

Nora

The weekday blues...

Much to my dismay, it is Monday morning again and it seems that the weekend flew by in no time at all. I sure as heck don't know what happened to it. It seemed it was Friday evening only just a very short time ago. I think the weekends are too short to enjoy properly and they ought to be three days long instead of two. 

As of now, I'm making Friday a weekend day also. I'll just have to ignore the fact that the domestic help will be here that day cleaning my apartment. If I just overlook that minor inconvenience, I should have no problem treating Fridays as a day off. It will be for the sake of my peace of mind that I do it. 

It would be better for my state of mind if I treated every day like a day off, but I don't think you can get away with that in real life. Responsibilities do have a way of piling up. Maybe if I approached them differently it would make a difference, but I have not yet found a way to do that. 

I would want to approach them lightheartedly with hardly any care. Really, that's all they need. I don't have to put so much serious effort into them. They are never matters of life or death, yet I act as if they are. I act like the load is heavier to bear than it really is. I need to lighten up. 

I need to have a weekend attitude during the week. In the weekends I do chores too, but somehow they seem to weigh less, as if they are not so very crucial and they are done easier. But then I've always liked the weekends better. Even when I still had my kids and they were home from school.

Weather wise it's actually going to be a nice day today with partial cloudy skies and enough sunshine. The temperature is going to be pleasant and I won't have to dress so warm. I can open the windows again after a cold night.

It will be the usual emotionally exhausting day with both my personal helper and the domestic help being here one after the other. I never look forward to that and I have to mentally prepare myself for it. I have to shore up my defenses to deal with it. I always look forward to the moment when everybody is gone again. 

I always feel like I survived that time and that the time spent alone after it is my reward for it. So, all I have to do is hang in there long enough and be patient and wait it out. Soon enough I will be by myself again, although it doesn't seem soon enough to me. Maybe I need to make a change in my arrangements. It may be time to rethink some things. 

I've got to go back to bed for a while and get some more sleep before the first person gets here. I do need a few hours more sleep. It's just becoming dawn. I could stay up now and start the day, but there's no sense in being up so early. I'd like to postpone the inevitable just a while longer.

It's time to take my medicines and have a glass of milk. The dog's been out back and he's sound asleep in the armchair. We should be all set for a few more hours. 

Have a good morning.

Ciao,

Nora

The pesky dog strikes again...

The dog has been out back three times already and still he wants to go outside again. I refuse to let him because I don't want to stand by the back door one more time and wait for him to get done with whatever he does in the dark out there. 

So I have to ignore him, even though he looks at me with pleading brown eyes that will melt your heart. I have to be tough, but it doesn't come easy. He's such a sweet little animal. I know that every move I make will give him hope. 

Needless to say, it's in the middle of the night and I've already slept my requisite hours for now. Because it's Saturday, I feel that I can be very careless and not worry about when I go back to bed and how late I will sleep this morning, but it will probably be just like any other day. 

It's just an illusion that the weekend days are different than the weekdays. It's all in my mind. I just have a sense of freedom that I actually can have during the week most of the time too, unless I have an appointment and those don't happen all that frequently. 

I must somehow gain the same sense of liberation during the week that I have on the weekends, except that I don't know yet how to do it. I always feel that the sword of Damocles hangs over me during the week and that anything at all can happen and I prepare for the worst, leaving my stomach tied up in knots a lot. 

I realize that I have to learn to relax more and to apply the techniques that I have learned in yoga more often. I do that quite a bit, but I think I forget to at some crucial moments. I think the nap that I take during the afternoon is the thing that helps me get through the day. If it weren't for that, I would carry a lot more stress with me. 

Absolutely nothing of interest at all was on TV last night, so I made it a short night and went to bed early. I very cozily laid under my warm duvet with the cover with little red roses on it and listened to the radio. The dog and the cat cavorted on the bed for a while before they settled down. 

They don't care if I'm lying in it. They just stumble right over me. I'm just an obstacle to get over that's in the way of them. They do, after a while, calm down and find their spot to lie down next to me. That's when I can go to sleep properly. 

We have nothing but cold and rainy weather to look forward to for a while. I'm not sure how I feel about this and I don't know if the weather is affecting my outlook. I don't mind that the temperatures are cool, but I think that I do miss the sunshine.

I'm looking forward to lying in bed and listening to the rain come down. To me that is the coziest sound. It is one of the pleasures of life. 

I hope you'll all have a good morning and a splendid day. 

Ciao,

Nora

No chickens crossing the street...

It's early in the morning and any time now the sun is going to come up. It will not be the spectacular sight I make it out to be. It will slowly get light and there will not be musical accompaniment as there would be in a documentary narrated by David Attenborough. It will be a very understated event. An every day occurrence.

On top of that, it is foggy now and it will be cloudy later, so you can well imagine that it will not look like I am on the Serengeti Plains. Today will be just a bad weather day in the Netherlands in July. We're stuck under a low pressure system. 

It would be nice if life were accompanied by a permanent appropriate soundtrack, but there is no such thing, although I guess people with iPods would disagree with that. Maybe it would become somewhat nerve wrecking after a while if every experience were set to music, even if it was the music of your choice. 

I would need a lot of Baroque, for instance. Lots of Bach. That would fit my life best. For me no highly dramatic, sweeping movements by Mahler. That would be way too emotional. I would only go as far as Vivaldi for the bigger events. 

Let's face it, though. There are no really big events in my life anymore. They're all well behind me. All I have left now is the preciseness of every day predictability and the false sense of control that I try to keep over it. 

I say it is a false sense because you rarely can control all the events in your life. You are always left vulnerable because you're a human being and part of a whole. You'd have to be a recluse not to be exposed to that. 

***

I watched a fun thriller last night. It was called 'Sherlock' and yes, there was a Dr Watson, but it played in the present time and there was no question of time travel. There had never been another Sherlock Holmes. I was a bit skeptical at first, but it turned out to be a brilliant episode and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope there's another episode on soon because I'll be watching it with pleasure. 

***

Yesterday was a shitty day. I was in a state of depression practically all day. It didn't lift until the evening, like it usually does when the day is over. I don't know what to make of it and I don't know what the cause of it is. I'll blame it on the weather for lack of a better reason. 

I do so intensely dislike my moods and the eternal shifts in them that I find unpredictable. I always try to find the reason, but it is not always obvious and when I think I have found it, it very often doesn't turn out to be the right one. 

All I can hope for is a shift toward a better mood and that this doesn't take too long. I do feel like a puppet on a string. 

***

I must go back to bed. I've got some sleeping left to do. Today should be a quite ordinary day without surprises in it. I've got to do some chores, but nothing spectacular. There is going to be rain and it should be a good day to read. 

Have a good day, all of you.

Ciao,

Nora

Exit - stage right.

I'm waiting for the dog to wake up so we can go for our evening stroll around the fields. It's not raining now, so it would be the perfect opportunity. There is a brisk wind blowing, but I've put some strong hairspray on my hair that's hurricane proof, so I have nothing to worry about. 

The dog is snoring in the armchair, but I know that just as easily he can wake up any moment. It's just a nap he's taking. I know he has to go out because he hasn't eaten his dinner yet. He only does that after he has been aired properly. He does have his steady habits. 

I've taken a nap, so I'm in good shape. I was doing less well before I took it and that is because I was woken up prematurely by my personal helper this morning. I wasn't done sleeping yet.

I had set the alarm clock, but had shut it off and turned over for some more sleep. I was taken by surprise when she rang the intercom. It took two cups of coffee for me to become enthused about being up, but I was approachable and not grumpy. I just didn't move and talk at a great speed right away. 

I've got a decent outfit on and I will try to wear it as long as possible this week. I must try to keep it clean. It's very warm and comfortable and it looks good and those are my main concerns.

I was wearing something yesterday that looked okay, but it made my flabby stomach stick out and that won't do at all. I had to keep trying to remember to tighten my muscles and of course I didn't. That made me look like a saggy old woman, unless you only looked at me selectively. 

I'm very critical of how other people look, so I assume they in turn are critical of how I look. Or maybe it is the other way around. I don't know which comes first, the chicken or the egg. I'm sure I have some sort of complex. 

I watched 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' on YouTube. I had never seen that movie, although I tried to watch it once on an airplane very unsuccessfully. I'm going to watch 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' next. I can see how a person could get completely hooked on these movies. It's especially interesting to see the actors get older with each one. 

I have to wake up the dog and take him for a walk. At the rate he is sleeping, we're never going to go anywhere. I still have to eat dinner and watch the news. There will be no thriller on tonight. Too bad, but there's that movie. 

I hope you'll all have a good evening.

Ciao, 

Nora

A cranky old woman...

The dog woke me up with his barking before I was ready to be awakened. This displeases me very much. As a result I'm sitting here yawning with my second cup of coffee and it's like there's no hope in sight. I'm doomed to be in this half awake state until I go back to bed. Woe is me. 

I'm sure I will wake up any minute now. The caffeine is bound to start working. If not, some cold milk will do the job. It will jolt my braincells awake with its frosty goodness. Just like ice cream would if I had some. Mmm...vanilla ice cream. A Dove bar would taste good right now. 

I had lost half a kilo when I went on the bathroom scale just now, so by this morning, when I go on it again, I will have lost a whole kilo. It always works out that way. The fairies take away the weight while I sleep. Just like the tooth fairy takes away your tooth. It's as if by magic, just from sleeping. It requires calories too. 

I went to bed early last night because there was no thriller on TV or anything really that I was interested in. I fell asleep pretty quickly while listening to the radio in the space on the bed left me by the cat and the dog. They do crowd in and one wants to lie closer than the other.

This ended a fairly uneventful day in which I only saw my psychiatrist who asked me uncertainly if I had lost weight. I answered him affirmatively and he smiled and said that men weren't always so sure about those things. Isn't that funny? He's a little absentminded so it's possible that he wasn't sure and that he only had a vague memory of what I looked like. It's kind of endearing that he did notice.

I've had my glasses of milk and I must go back to bed now. Since it's Saturday, I will sleep for a long time without any feelings of guilt. Whatever chores need to get done, I will do in the afternoon. Sleep is a great good. 

I hope you'll all have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

Rain, rain go away...

Every time I decide to take the dog for a walk, it is raining as it is now. It completely messes up our schedule and we have to wait until it's dry again. There's a cold wind blowing too and I need to wear a scarf and a jacket when we go outside. 

The cold isn't too bad if you're prepared for it. You just have to make sure you're dressed warm enough. The wind whips my hair in all directions and I have to try and fix it when we get home, but I have to fix it after I take a nap too or whenever I sleep on it. 

I'm constantly fixing my hair because it is so short and I thought I was getting a no nonsense haircut. Because it's so fine and it's such flyaway hair, it has a tendency to get stuck in the wrong place very easily. Maybe if it's a little bit longer, it won't be as bad. 

I'm wearing the scarf as a fashion accessory. It is made of cotton and not too warm to keep wearing inside. I picked it to match my clothes and it's one that I washed along with a lot of other items from the coat rack. 

I like the way it feels around my neck. It's just a little bit warmer and more comfortable than having nothing there. I still have the bedroom windows open and it has gotten cooler in the apartment. I don't want to have to close the windows and turn up the thermostat. 

I'd rather dress more warmly and in layers. I do have enough clothes to choose from. That's no problem. 

*

The dog couldn't wait any longer and I had to take him for a walk. It was drizzling and we got a bit wet, but it's a good thing that I took him when I did, because now it's really pouring. It started to come down hard right after we came in.

At least I won't have to go water my sister's garden. Everything should get a good soaking. The timing of the rainy weather was perfect in that sense. I wished for rain and got it. I didn't realize that my wishes came true. I must wish for things more often. I suppose I must make an offering to the rain gods now.

Tonight 'A Touch of Frost' will be on. I'm in the mood for a thriller and it doesn't at all have to be complicated. I want to relax in my bathrobe and have nothing to worry about for a while. Watching a thriller is the perfect way to get my mind off things.

Right, I have to eat dinner, albeit sort of late. Chicken and pasta soup it is. 

Have a good evening.

Ciao,

Nora

Bedtime stories...

I'm perfectly content right now and want to savor the moment. Or should I say, the long moments that I will be content because I know it's going to last a while. It's not over until the fat lady sings and there's no fat lady around here anywhere, nor is there likely to be one in the middle of the night. At least not within my hearing distance. There will be no sudden opera arias sung. I will fall out of my chair with surprise if there are.

I always say this, but I'm drinking a very good cup of coffee and doubtlessly that has put me in a good mood. Caffeine is one of my preferred choices of chemical addictions, after all. It and nicotine are my crutches as befits a writer. I should write crime fiction on a portable Remington and live in the 50's when everyone was oblivious.

I'm sitting here with a new haircut which I got yesterday. My very own hairdresser cut my hair and she did a fabulous job, but that's for me to claim and for you to believe. It's very short and I love to run my fingers through it. It's indestructible hair. 

Everybody else and their sister had been cutting my hair lately, except for my very own hairdresser, and they all had done a decent job, but not as good as she has done now. We were trying to remember yesterday how long she has been cutting my hair and could not think of the number of years it had been exactly, but it has been a long time. 

My hair always lightens up after it has been cut. It must be that the gray hair shows up more, but I like the look of it and walk down the street proudly afterwards. I'm not the least bit vain, of course. My hairdresser fixes my hair with gel, something I'm never able to do well myself, and for the rest of the day I have a cute hairdo until I sleep on it. I'll have to wash it in the morning to get it to look decent again. 

Today is going to be a cool day with rain and drizzle, so I'll have to wear completely different clothes than I did yesterday when it was so warm. A low pressure system from France has come over us. For a change our weather is not coming from England. It's moving north toward Scandinavia and then turning around and moving over us again causing a double whammy. 

I have a day off without any appointments. I actually wish I did have some because I'm more in the mood to have some action in my life at the moment. I have to try and amuse myself in the best possible way without getting into any trouble and without getting wet. And without spending money. That's very restrictive, isn't it? 

I think I will go look for something interesting to do now because I'm not nearly ready to go back to bed. The fat lady isn't singing yet. 

Ciao,

Nora

Harrowing tales of nothingness...

I'm sitting here in the middle of the night with one of the best cups of coffee that I ever made and am enjoying it very much. Sometimes I get lucky and the coffee turns out great. I don't know why that is. I seem to do everything the same as I always do, but the result is different and better somehow. 

I always blame it on Juan who picks the best beans in Columbia and that I happened to get a good batch of them, but this is ground coffee from an opened pack and I'm sure there is no difference in the quality from yesterday's coffee. 

I'll blame it on my own good mood then and my taste buds, which are on this occasion finely tuned and able to appreciate the experience especially well. My senses must be very alert.

I expect two of my senses to be better developed some time soon and those are my sense of taste and smell. I'm planning on quitting smoking soon and I expect that over time those two senses will improve quite a bit, although I don't expect any miracles overnight. I remember from the last time I tried to quit that the improvement didn't happen all of the sudden. 

I'm looking forward to quitting smoking and can't wait for the day to arrive that I will. I'm visualizing myself as a nonsmoker in my head so much, that I'm ready to be one. Because I've tried to quit before, I know what the pitfalls are and what I'm up against. I hope that will make this attempt more successful. 

Despite my misgivings about yesterday and it being my least favorite day of the week, it actually was a fine day. My mood was good and the day went by quickly and without a hitch. All the things I worried about ahead of time, turned out to have been unnecessary. The stress that I felt on Sunday had disappeared by the next day, so I was left unworried. 

I don't know why I felt so uptight on Sunday and why I was so worried about the next day being Monday and a difficult day. I anticipated too much trouble when there turned out not to be any. Maybe Sunday itself was a difficult day without me consciously realizing it and it had bothered me more than I was aware of. 

I'm a victim of my own fickle mood system which doesn't always work faultlessly. There are day to day nuances in it that I'm not always aware of and that make a difference in how I experience my life at a given moment. The nuances can be big enough to really make a difference that's bothersome and completely alter my attitude. I'm not a finely tuned machine, much as I'd like to be. 

My psychiatrist said that I could use an extra tranquilizer during the day if I felt the need for it, but I feel that my stress level has come way down now. It may not at all be necessary.  The problem with the tranquilizers is that they are downers and that they can make you feel sad. I'll avoid them if possible. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist on Thursday during which he wants to see how I am doing on the increased medication. 

In the meantime, I've switched from coffee to cold milk and I'm appreciating that very much also. I managed to make the milk last for a whole week by being a little more frugal with it. This morning the Exfactor will be here to do the groceries and I have enough milk left to drink and to use for coffee when he gets here. 

He's got to buy rawhide bones for the dog because he's going through them like they are candy canes. He chews them up in the shortest amount of time and goes through whole packages of them. There's nothing that makes him happier than a rawhide bone. 

I hope you'll all have a good day or a good night, whichever comes first.

Ciao,

Nora

Three dimensional...

I went to bed after watching the Norwegian thriller that was on last night, but I was unable to go to sleep. I laid in bed for a while staring at the ceiling, trying to get comfortable and in the right frame of mind to doze off, but I was unsuccessful. I felt every wrinkle and fold in the sheets. 

After an hour and a half I gave up and got up and put my bathrobe on and decided to stay up for a while and try to go to sleep again later. I think I have to be more tired than I am now. Apparently I'm not yawning enough and the sleep medication is not working. After I've had this coffee, I'll drink a glass of warm milk. 

I didn't realize that the thriller I was going to watch last night was Norwegian, it didn't say anything about it in the on line TV guide. I just noticed that the language was different than Swedish because I had a harder time understanding it. Somewhere along the line I found out it was taking place in Bergen on the west coast of Norway. 

It was a good thriller and it was still a recognizable language, but I really had to pay attention. I don't think I can learn more than one Scandinavian language at the time. I hope the next one is Swedish again like the one the night before was. Of course, a British one would be good too. There'd be no trouble understanding it. But thank goodness for subtitles. 

It's still in the middle of the night, but I count this as being Monday already. The weekend is over and I'm sorry about that. I could use another day off. I've got one more load of laundry to do, although I did one yesterday, though it's not dry yet. It's taking up space on the drying rack in the bathroom. 

I changed the bed, but that didn't help me fall asleep. I always look forward to going to sleep between clean sheets, but this time the trick didn't work. 

I think I have stress about tomorrow because I don't want it to be Monday. It's not my favorite day of the week. You could say that it's my least favorite day because I hardly have any privacy and the day seems so long. I do get a clean apartment, but that's the most that can be said about the day. 

I'm sure lots of people don't enjoy their Mondays. After all, it's the first day after the weekend and time to get back to work. It must be hard on everyone. I'd be curious to know how many grumpy people there are first thing Monday morning. Or are you all ready and roaring to go? 

I'm starting to yawn and that's a good sign. I'll be able to go to bed shortly. I just need to be tired enough to look forward to it. 

I hope you're all having a good night. 

Ciao,

Nora

Clean hair and lose jeans...

The skinny jeans that I washed in hot water and tried to shrink down to a size 12 are still too big and I can slide them down without unbuttoning or unzipping them. That's handy when you have to go to the toilet in a hurry.

They look alright, it's my secret that they are a little bit too big. Only I know. They don't fall down all by themselves. It's not as bad as that. And they are comfortable to wear, that's important. They don't scrunch my intestines together.

I walked the dog in them and they stayed up alright, even when I bent over to pick up the poop. That was my biggest worry. I didn't want to have to stand there on the sidewalk and have to hitch up my jeans.

And I have incredibly clean hair. After I washed it, I dried it with the towel just to the point that I could get it into a good do that was flattering and that I sprayed with some hairspray to stay in position.

I have such fine flyaway hair that even applying the hairspray makes it alter the do, so I have to be very careful and not spray it on directly but at an angle. I have clean hair more often, but I don't always get it to look right like I did now.

I should be oohed and aahed over.Since there's no one here to do that, I'll have to do it myself when I look in the mirror.

I'm wearing a perfectly clean summer cardigan straight from the drying rack. It smells like washing powder and I'm being very careful not to get it dirty. The dog climbed on me earlier and he had wet paws. Luckily, he left no evidence on my clothes. He does still think that he's a lap dog.

The cat left a dead bird in the bedroom this morning and I stepped on it with my bare feet. I didn't screech, but it was an unpleasant surprise. I disposed of it under the jasmine bush on the patio where it will decompose naturally. I've seen the process before.

Neither animal shows any interest in it now and it just lies there being a dead bird. I'm getting used to this and no longer feel much emotion with it. There are numerous birds in the trees that grace the patio and I hear them chirping all day long. A casualty is bound to fall every now and then. That does not mean that I'm not sorry.

It's time for me to eat dinner. My stomach is starting to growl. I've also got to see if there's anything special on TV until 'Wallander' comes on later on tonight. I think the dog wants to go out one more time. He sure acts as though he does. He's pacing very impatiently.

I hope you will all have a good Saturday night.

Ciao,
Nora

Continuing upwardly mobile...

In my case I mean to say that I continue to feel better and that the increase in medication is working. I don't feel bereft any longer, although I'm still not quite back to normal. That will happen with time, I'm sure. I don't have things completely under control and my household is not up to par, but I can live with that for the moment. I'm not a desperate housewife yet and this is not her diary. 

All will be well by tomorrow. The domestic help will be here and together we will straighten out the place and things will be right as rain for the weekend. I'm looking forward to that very much as usual. Bless the days off on the weekend. I will never take them for granted. 

I'm having a much needed cup of coffee and I made it strong the way I really like it. I have enough of a supply of ground coffee to allow myself to do that again. I took a nap this afternoon and I was very much sound asleep. I wasn't just dozing like I sometimes do. That necessitated the caffeine to wake me up properly. 

I walked the dog before the first cup of coffee had really done its work and made the walk short so I could have a second cup quickly. I made sure the dog did all that he had to do and sniffed in enough places and peed against enough blades of grass and bushes. After he had set his boundaries, we returned home in a hurry. 

I'm really awake now and could have a conversation if there were someone to talk to. The deliveryman from the pharmacy was here, but he was in a hurry to deliver the rest of his medicines. I couldn't pull him into the front door. He would have protested loudly and the neighbors would have noticed.

I try talking to the dog, but all he does is wag his tail and demand to be petted. It doesn't matter what the subject is. It's all blah blah to him. 

I must do some chores before 'Inspector Frost' comes on. I've been neglecting some things and must take care of them before I sit down and get comfortable. I also want to get into my pajamas and bathrobe so I will be ready for bed when the time comes. Oh yes, I still have to eat too. 

Have a great evening.

Ciao,

Nora

Feeling better...

I've been in the most god awful mood for the past three days, but this afternoon I got smart and took an extra pill and since then I've started feeling a lot better. I was about to call my psychiatrist or the crisis line because I was feeling so bad. I was being my own worst enemy and thought that everyone and everything else was too. How terribly frustrating that was, and so exhausting too. 

Now I feel like I am more myself again and that I'm capable of handling life as it happens. As long as nothing too complicated comes along, I should be okay. Luckily, the day is almost over and I don't expect anything out of the ordinary to happen. The evening should be pretty predictable and there is even going to be a thriller on TV. 

I've already walked the dog in the coolness of the late afternoon. It wasn't very warm today and it even looked like it was going to rain. That's how overcast and gloomy the sky got. Still, I only needed to wear my cardigan and I wasn't in the least uncomfortable. 

Tomorrow we're going to have some showers, but we've been having a lot of those lately and it's nothing new. Actually, we're all getting a little tired of them. I think we're all in need of more sunshine than we are getting now and many people are changing their minds and are booking last minute holidays to Spain anyway. 

You'd have to pay me a lot of money to get me to go there and sit on the beach with all those other sunburned bodies. That's not my idea of a perfect vacation. I do dislike crowds and would hate to hang out on the beach at the Costas or in a swimming pool at some overpopulated hotel. I would rather go to the countryside and to museums and churches and small towns in Italy, for instance. 

I can't go on vacation at all due to lack of money, but in my head and imagination I travel a lot. I've already been to a lot of places in the past, so I can remember them. I do have that. I don't know if I will ever travel again in the future, but I always have the vague assumption that I will. Maybe I will win the lottery one day.

It's nice if you don't confront reality too hard and leave something to the imagination, otherwise you get so desperate. It's better not to get too super realistic about things and leave them a little bit vague and not too sharply outlined in your mind. You always want to have a little bit of hope. 

I choose not to think too intently about the future. I like to leave it a little bit unknown and unclear, although I must say that at this rate it's pretty much predictable. The future is practically written out for me and I expect no real surprises. 

I get the distinct impression that the dog wants to go out again. He is sitting here beside me very impatiently. I think I'd better pay attention to his needs. 

Have a good evening.

Ciao,

Nora

Imaginary skirmishes...

I'm really going to try and write a post for this blog now because it's been a while since I've done that. I never seem to get around to it anymore, although it used to be my habit after I took a nap in the afternoon. My naps have become longer, or I have been taking them later. Either way, I don't get around to writing posts and end up in front of the TV watching the news instead. 

Today I'm really late, so it doesn't matter what I do now. My schedule is completely turned upside down, but I don't mind because it's Friday. I ate lunch late so I'm still full and I don't need to eat anything for a long while because it was a big lunch by my standards. I may never eat again. Maybe that's what accounts for my big nap. It was my very full stomach. 

Now that I fit in size 12 hip hugging, skinny jeans, I really want to lose the rest of my weight. I'm very motivated and I don't want any unnecessary food to pass my lips. I have love handles that I want to get rid off and a couple of tops that I really want to wear, but that are too tight. I would look ridiculous in them, so they're laying on a stack waiting for me to fit into them. I tell myself that with enough persistence, I will. 

I can be as stubborn as the next person and once I have an idea in my head, it's hard to change my mind about it. I'm visualizing a skinny person and that's what I'll be.

I'm having a wonderful cup of coffee and am thinking about a glass of milk. I think I will stick to coffee because I need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed. I still have to walk the dog and I have the feeling that he's not going to be happy with a short walk. 

At least it doesn't look like it's going to rain like it did earlier when the sky was so threatening and dark gray. It's not at all warm outside, but that's okay with me. I can just put on my favorite jacket. My black leather one...the one that's getting too big on me.

*

The dog became impatient and I had to take him for a walk. It turned out that some rainclouds had moved in, unbeknown to me, and we didn't go for a long walk after all. I did let him sniff extensively all over the place as long as we weren't too far from home. He took his time doing that and smelled every blade of grass and every bush. He's now very happily chowing down on his kibbles which he had ignored before.

I'm having another cup of coffee and am not worrying about the rest of the evening. Time is going by quickly and half of the evening has already sped by. I will watch some TV later on, but tonight there's no thriller on despite the network's promise that there would be every evening. You can't believe anyone nowadays. Every night does not apparently mean, every night. 

I've had to turn the lights on already in the living room, it was so gloomy. Today may be the first of July, but the weather certainly isn't acting like it. A little bit of sunshine would be okay.

I hope you all have a good evening. I'm making the best of mine. 

Ciao,

Nora